Suggestion & Discussion: Self Disclosure Exemption

The problem with posting personal information in a public forum is just that - it's public. There is nothing stopping cyber creeps from wandering in here and tracking down someone. It's more an issue of safety over liability.

That being said, there is quite a lot of information already provided that could potentially be used for "inappropriate contact." IE, people living in small towns and posting their names and the town they live in, along with their own pictures.

I think the system in place now is probably the best balance of too much vs not enough. Also, there comes a point where individuals have to take responsibility for their own personal information.

 

Really i think it just all need to be put in layman's terms. This is what can be done, this is what can't be done. So theres no confusion when reading all those rules!

 

Unfortunately, it's either we have the site with the no public sharing of contact information, or no EC at all. It's a legal requirement to keep EC here at all. That's all there is to it.

 

just thought id ask...is sharing like my facebook and stuff still ok in PMs and whatnot? i dont do it often anymore since im not that active here but i was just wondering.

ps i like our rules. keeps the weird people from finding me :]

 

This is the heart of it for me. I wouldn't have joined EC if it weren't for the safety aspects which were obvious from the start. And compared to other LGBT forums, yes, these policies do seem to attract caring and compassionate people who are interested in helping others as opposed to trolling or worse... It's not hard to see that many people arrive at this site in a vulnerable state, and it wouldn't be too hard for a person with bad intentions to take advantage of them were it not for these rules. You change the rules, you change EC...

 

Private Messages (including chat PMs) are the only places to share certain information about yourself.

All these rules and the full member system can be annoying for everyone, but it's all worthwhile if a safe place for safe discussions can be provided for the most vulnerable people. Because it's very rare to find a sexuality forum on the internet where people with bad intentions would not find it easy to thrive, especially ones with a large teenage population.

 

Why is nowhere else on the internet liable it seems? You don't hear of facebook, myspace, msn, aim, getting sued all the time? Or other forums. You can't control what members do. Just curious.

Also what could EC be sued for? Even with the way it used to be?

I've yet to actually understand.

 

I should start by stating I'm not challenging the restrictions--I understand they won't be changed. But I did want to point out some things.

That makes it sound like there is some *law* that makes it necessary for EC to have the policies it does, which is not the case. It's not like some law changed in June 2008 and it became illegal for EC to operate the way it used to operate. What happened is there was "an incident" which brought the issue of liability to the forefront and EC's owners decided they were unwilling to continue having the site operated the way it had been operated, hence the requirement of the restrictions. I just wanted to make it clear that this was a choice on the part of the owners to reduce their potential liability, not something they were required to do by law.

Yes, liability is exactly what it is about, which brings us to:

Except that, as someone who was here long before the current restrictions were in place (I think I'm member #96 or something), I can tell you that EC did not magically become a better place once the restrictions came into force. What attracted people to EC "back in the day"--and, I would argue, what attracts people to it still--is moderation, not some artificial and pretty easily circumvented (if you were really invested) privacy restrictions. The moderation creates a regulated space where people feel safe and comfortable, and it did that without privacy restrictions for a number of years. Quality people were attracted to EC because it was a community which had a mission and people who devoted time and energy to maintaining a supportive atmosphere.

Probably not, inasmuch as things would just go back to the way they were before. EC is not EC because of the privacy restrictions, because EC was EC for years without them. It's a rewrite of the site's history to predict problems with the removal of the restrictions when we have a few years of proof that the site was viable without them. The way you describe how things would likely progress if the restrictions were removed (and again, I get it--they're not going to be) make it sound like EC would become just like most other Internet social spaces... except what led to the "incident" is that EC got to be what it is--a popular site for young people questioning their sexuality and gender identity--and it got there without the restrictions that now exist. So I'm confused as to how the restrictions "make" EC what it is. The restrictions exist precisely because EC got super-popular... but it got that popular totally without the restrictions.

The only thing that would degrade EC in the sense you're talking about would be if the site stopped being moderated.

And what's highly ironic about the above is that it's exactly true--which is to say that EC's privacy restrictions are hardly going to stop some unreasonable parent or other "concerned party" from suing the site if they're determined to sue it. Because someone on EC could get in touch with someone else online and maybe they're not a "predator" in the commonly-portrayed media sense of the notion but some situation goes badly for a variety of reasons and the parents or authorities find out that the parties "connected" on EC and *bam* lawsuit. And like you said, the people suing may not (and hopefully would not) ever get close to winning... but there would still be the cost of the defence.

I mean, it's all very well and good that EC makes an attempt to make the environment more secure but at the end of the day, people can PM one another and share personal contact info, and "something bad" could still happen as a result of meeting someone here.

But the risk of the cost of having to defend against lawsuits is there regardless of whether EC has the privacy restrictions or not. Having the restrictions is something to point to as a way of saying "hey we were trying" but it's doubtful an angry parent or authority figure is going to hear that and say, "Oh I'm sorry--I was so mistaken! I can see you attempted to make things better so I'll stop being unreasonable now." Unreasonable people don't usually recognize things like good faith efforts. If they did, they wouldn't be unreasonable and sue in the first place.

And the real kicker is that the incident with the adult member talking to younger members in an inappropriate way involved an adult member who I am pretty sure would have been made a full member long before the questionable behaviour started--because there wasn't really any indication beforehand that he was, for lack of a better term, off. He was relatively established before the problems started. So what I'm getting at is that EC's privacy restrictions are a lot like locking your doors and windows--it might prevent casual, unplanned intrusions into your home but if someone really wants to get in, they're gonna find a way in. And if everything people say about child molesters is true--that they are very wily and willing to spend a lot of time manipulating young people--then it's entirely possible one or more of them could get themselves full membership here and THEN start with the inappropriate communication. And the only way to "protect" people in that case is to educate them and teach them to think critically and make good judgments.

In that sense, it's a lot like sex. You can tell people not to do it until you're blue in the face but the most effective way to protect people is to help them figure out how to make good choices.

So it would be good to recognize that EC is not awesome and wondrous because of the privacy restrictions. EC is awesome and wondrous because it has always been maintained by a group of caring and devoted people--mods and non-mods alike. The restrictions in place are an unfortunate by-product of an overly litigious society that is completely paranoid about child safety and youth sexuality, and they're not the reason the site is so popular. If the restrictions were essential to EC's status as a great online space, then "the incident" that was the trigger for putting the restrictions in place would never have happened because EC would never have attracted enough people to make it a good target for the type of nastiness that ensued.

 

I'd also like to make another point. This site has no advertising, no income. It does have outgoings in terms of operation, optimisation, etc. It is, quite literally, run as a 'public service' by the owners because they believe in what it does and what it stands for.

I doubt whether anyone else here would fail to understand why they would wish to do the best they can to protect he users of this site, the people who monitor its operation for them - and, quite obviously, their own interests by requiring security precautions to attempt to achieve all of the above.

Bear in mind that what we have now is very much a compromise. After the incident that gave rise to the need for serious scrutiny of the security here - the legal advice was to completely remove ALL possibility of contact which was not totally public. That was - NO Chatroom, NO Personal Message system - nothing but a Forum. It was only after a good deal of negotiation that we achieved what we now have - and that was only possible because the owners decided they had (and still have) sufficient confidence in the volunteers who look after the site to step back a little from the advice of their legal counsel.

Oh - and while you make the point that "You can tell people not to do it until you're blue in the face but the most effective way to protect people is to help them figure out how to make good choices" - I have to say...do you honestly think this site has any emphasis other than that?